Four Characters Of Gospel Peace 3/5

3. Character of gospel peace.  Gospel peace in the conscience is strengthening and restorative.  It makes the Christian strong to fight against sin and Sa­tan.  The Christian is revived, and finds his strength come, upon a little tasting of this honey; but O what a slaughter doth he make of his spiritual enemies, when he hath a full meal of this honey, a deep draught of this wine! now he goes like a giant re­freshed with wine into the field against them.  No lust can stand before him.  It makes him strong to work. O how Paul laid about him for Christ!  He ‘laboured more abundantly than they all.’  The good man re­membered what a wretch he once was, and what mer­cy he had obtained; the sense of this love of God lay so glowing at his heart, that it infired him with a zeal for God above his fellow-apostles.  This made holy David pray so hard to drink again of this wine, which so long had been locked up from him.  ‘Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit; then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee,’ Ps. 51:12, 13. Pray mark, it was not his lickerish palate after the sweet taste of this wine of comfort that was the only or chief reason why he so longed for it; but the admirable virtue he knew in it, to inspirit and empower him with zeal for God.  Whereas the false peace and comfort of hypocrites is more heady than hearty; it leaves them as weak as they were before; yea, it lies rotting, like unwholesome food in the stomach, and leaves a surfeit in their souls—as lus­cious summer fruits do in the bodies of men—which soon breaks out in loose practices.  Thieves common­ly spend their money as ill as they get it; and so do hypocrites and formalists their stolen comforts.  Stay but a little, and you shall find them feasting some lust or other with them.  ‘I have peace-offerings with me,’ saith the religious whore—the hypo­critical harlot —‘this day I have paid my vows, therefore I came forth to meet thee,’ Prov 7:14, 15.  She pacifies her con­science and comforts herself with this religious service she performs; and now, having, as she thought, quit scores with God, she returns to her own lustful trade; yea, emboldens herself from this, in her wickedness.  ‘Therefore came I forth to meet thee,’ as if she durst not have played the whore with man till she had played the hypocrite with God, and stopped the mouth of her conscience with her peace-offering. Look, therefore, I beseech you, very carefully, what effect your peace and comfort have in your hearts and lives.  Are you the more humble or proud for your comfort? do you walk more closely or loosely after your peace? how stand you to duties of worship? are you made more ready for communion with God in them, or do you grow strange to and infrequent in them? have you more quickening in them, or lie more formal and lifeless under them?  In a word, can you show that grace and peace grow in thee alike? or doth the one less appear, since thou doest more pretend to the other?  By this thou mayest know whether thy peace comes from the peace-maker, or peace-marrer, from the God of truth or the father of lies.

4. Character of gospel peace.  Gospel peace com­forts the soul, and that strongly, when it hath no oth­er comfort to mingle with it.  It is a cordial rich enough itself, and needs not any other ingredient to be compounded with it.  David singles out God by himself.  ‘Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee,’ Ps. 73:25. Give David but his God, and let who will take all be­sides; let him alone to live comfortably, may he but have his love and favour.  Hence it is that the Chris­tian’s peace pays him in the greatest revenues of joy and comfort, when outward enjoyments contribute least, yea nothing at all, but bring in matter of trouble.  ‘But David encouraged himself in his God,’ I Sam. 30:6.  You know when that was.  If David’s peace had not been right and sound, he would have been more troubled to think of God at such a time than of all his other disasters.  ‘Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them,’ Ps. 119:165.  This distinguishes the saint’s peace, both from the worldling’s and the hypocrite’s